Diverse cast vies for NASCAR ride on BET show

The show is billed as an
opportunity to change the face of NASCAR. Ten blacks, Hispanics and women, all
living in one house, competing for a job as a driver in a sport that has been
dominated for 60 years by white males.

That competition will play
out this fall in “Changing Lanes,” a documentary series produced by the NASCAR
Media Group that will air on BET beginning Wednesday. BET has purchased 10
episodes of the one-hour show.

It’s a cross between MTV’s
“Real World” and NBC’s “The Apprentice.” “Changing Lanes” examines the
challenges of making it as a driver, with one of them being eliminated each
week until there’s a lone survivor.

The docu-series headlines
the most active fall programming lineup NASCAR Media Group has ever produced.
The media group’s shows and movies will appear on CMT, Speed, Discovery,
Showtime, Versus, ESPN and BET this fall, giving NASCAR’s media arm more units
of programming on more unique networks than it’s ever had.

NASCAR Media Group has been
producing “Inside NASCAR” for Showtime all season and it produces more than a
dozen shows for Speed throughout the year, but new programming will launch this
fall on BET, Discovery’s HD Theater, Versus and CMT.

“It’s a culmination of us
having a strategy in place to focus on different networks with different types
of programming,” said Jay Abraham, COO at NASCAR Media Group. “This fall,
you’ll see programs that talk to different audiences.”

A unique audience for
NASCAR will come from BET, a Viacom network in more than 90 million homes.
Abraham said it was the perfect outlet for a show that highlights NASCAR’s
Drive for Diversity program.

“We’ve been trying to
figure out a way to talk about diversity in a meaningful way for about three
years,” Abraham said.

Internal conversations at
NASCAR Media Group about Drive for Diversity programming led to discussions
with Max Siegel, CEO of Revolution Racing, the NASCAR-supported team that’s
trying to launch driving careers for diversity candidates. NASCAR helps fund
the drivers until they reach the Camping World Truck, Nationwide or Sprint Cup
levels, but stops there because of the potential for conflict of interest.

Siegel, a former Sony executive
who formerly ran Dale Earnhardt Inc., used his connections from the music and
media world to take the idea of “Changing Lanes” to Scott Mills, president and
chief operating officer of BET. Turned out that Mills was a huge NASCAR fan and
he paved the way for the show on his network.

“I leveraged every personal
relationship I’ve had for the last 20 years,” Siegel said with a laugh, when
asked how he convinced BET to take a NASCAR-themed show. “I went to see them
four times, Scott is a huge motorsports enthusiast and BET is going through a
rebranding initiative to grow its viewership. It’s an unusual but interesting
collaboration.”

Paul Brooks, the media
group’s president and a NASCAR senior vice president, said: “This is part of
our guarantee that the sport is open and welcome to all. BET reaches an
audience that’s very important for us and gives the sport a chance to grow.”

Abraham said that NASCAR
Media Group two years ago committed itself to creating new programming that
would appeal to a broader range of networks than its most loyal client, Speed,
which hits the core fans.

This fall, Versus will
carry “Next Generation,” a new series of five episodes that chronicles the
sport’s up-and-comers. “The Edge: Grand-Am Road Racing” airs on Discovery HD
Theater to give viewers a closer look at the 2010 season with a high-quality,
behind-the-scenes delivery that caters to HD and a more upscale viewer.

“Petty Blue” is a
documentary movie that tells the story of Richard Petty’s family in racing. DVD
sales begin in September and the movie will air on CMT in October, reaching
more of the core fans. Another NASCAR Media Group-produced documentary on the
life of former driver Tim Richmond, who died in 1989, is slated to air in
October on ESPN’s “30 for 30.”

The ideas for most of these
shows originated from the media group and were taken to the networks. The story
ideas, like the one for “Changing Lanes,” typically stem from NASCAR
initiatives and what it perceives to be undercovered series or drivers with
good stories to tell.